


Wild Heart

by edgarallenhoe



Series: The Life and Times of Iron Maiden [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Crushes, F/M, Flirting, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Love/Hate, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 01:19:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4121085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgarallenhoe/pseuds/edgarallenhoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn Rosen and Pietro Maximoff hate each other. They constantly bicker over Pietro's sometimes-harmless pranks. Both are beginning to wear down, though, and the fighting in the Stark Tower is getting worse. To get to the root of the problem, Clint, Natasha, and Wanda come up with a plan to get them to talk to each other. Will this ruin their relationship for good? Or will it serve to strengthen it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Heart

Months had passed since Quinn had joined the Avengers. She tried to think of it less like joining a team of superheroes and more like joining a team of supermodels. If she just concentrated on their appearances and less on the fact that they killed people for a living, she actually discovered that her mood improved one hundred percent. She didn’t like thinking about the death and despair aspect of her new job, and more on the new friendships she was making with the team.

Speaking of death and despair, a new super villain had come and gone. Ultron. A robot with the capacity to learn and grow as a human would. She wondered if Tony had ever actually seen a movie in his entire life; a lot of them warned against creating intelligent life in robots. Yes, they’d learn to love, but they’d also learn about the atrocities and follies of man and how much better off the world would be without them. With the help of the Maximoff twins, whom she had unknowingly “met” for the first time on her very first mission, he was able to almost complete his plan to wipe out the earth. Had it not been for the fact that the Maximoffs joined their team and they gained a new ally through the creation of more artificial life (dammit Tony), they would have been royally screwed.

The Maximoff Twins. Just thinking about their first few interactions made her shudder. However, Wanda had become one of her closest friends over the past few months. It was probably their shared experimentation and similar powers that brought them closer together. Pietro was another story; he was perhaps her most hated enemy. Well, that was probably a bit too dramatic. She didn’t hate Pietro, per se. She just intensely disliked him and everything he stood for. He was all flair and no substance (well, there actually was substance; he was a valued member of the team now, and she didn’t know how many times he had been the reason for their success). He was cheesy and his one-liners weren’t funny (but he managed to get a chuckle out of everyone all the time, even Banner laughed at his stupid jokes). Okay, but he was definitely hideous (the most gorgeous person she had ever met). As you can see, she was a bit conflicted on the subject.

Pietro and her never saw eye-to-eye. Perhaps it was the fact that he had made her look like a fool on their very first mission, or that she made him look like a fool in the battle with Ultron. Either way, they only tolerated each other in front of the rest of the team. When they were alone, it was either complete silence or a shouting match. It was strange, as they were very close in age (Pietro being 24 and Quinn being 21) and had many similar interests. They both loved the same genres of music, the same types of films, and shared the same passion for the outdoors, but one thing they both absolutely could not stand was each other.

She never understood exactly why he was so grieved after the fight with Ultron, after all she had saved his life! Clint had wrapped his body around a small boy as Ultron flew overhead firing on the ground; it was obvious Clint was going to die for the kid. Quinn was standing near the helicarrier and saw what was about to unfold in slow motion. Her brain seemed to always slow down in these types of situations. She started running as fast as she could, focusing on the bullets flying out of the gun and flinging them backward into the rubble. She had very little time as the helicopter was almost directly above Clint, so without thinking she flung the largest, closest piece of rubble into it, sending it crashing through a dilapidated building behind them. When the dust from the crash cleared, she saw Pietro Maximoff standing about ten feet away from her.

“You saved the day, eh?” he asked with a bit of a grimace on his face. She grinned a bit sheepishly, glad she could help. He just rolled his eyes and was gone before she could even blink. She shook her head, looking bewildered at what he had just said, but brushed it off to go check on Clint.

Ultron was defeated soon after that, and the twins were invited to join the team. They were fearful about how they would all get on after the events that had transpired. Wanda in particular seemed a bit nervous around the group, as she had manipulated all of their minds into seeing the most horrible things they had ever witnessed.

“Don’t worry, a lot of my friends have tried to kill me at one point or another,” Natasha joked. Wanda smiled tentatively at the comment, and shook Natasha’s outstretched hand. Pietro shook it afterwards and nodded at the redhead.

“My name’s Quinn. I’m new, too, so I’m sure we’ll be learning a lot together,” Quinn said with the warmest smile she could muster to the twins. Wanda took her hand and shook it a bit harder than she had shaken Natasha’s. She suspected it had something to do with saving her brother. To her shock, however, the brother in question did not even glance at her as he strode past. She was a bit hurt but figured the Sokovian boy had to crack his icy shell at some point. And she totally wasn’t angry or jealous when he shook everyone else’s hands.

If he wanted to be petty, so be it. She would just have to be civil. All they had to do was live together, as the twins had no home now. That couldn’t be too difficult, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong. There was no ignoring the palpable tension in the air every time they were in the same room. He would never give her the time of day, and when he did speak to her it was usually offensive. The first conversation they had when they weren’t on the battlefield went something like this:

“Pietro, can you pass me the remote?” She knew she could just bring it to herself with her mind, but figured she needed to try anything to get him to at least acknowledge her. Suddenly, though, she saw a streak of blue and the remote was in Wanda’s hand on the other side of the room.

“Ask Wanda, she’s the one who has it.” Pietro looked like he hadn’t moved an inch, sitting with his head propped up on one hand and his elbow on his knee. 

“What exactly was the point of that?” Quinn asked through gritted teeth.

“To see the look on your face, fetiță*,” he smirked and glanced at her, but quickly turned his face back to the television set.

“That was so petty! And this… This is not worth it,” she said as she got up and stormed to her room. She heard Wanda yelling at him, though, which gave her great joy even though it was all in Romanian and didn’t understand a lick of it.

Weeks passed and they made no progress. Their relationship was rocky but she just learned to ignore his stupid pranks. They weren’t even really pranks, he just liked to go out of his way to make her life a little harder. He would trip her, rip food and books out of her hands while she wasn’t paying much attention, turn off lights while she was alone in public rooms, etc. All of this was done without actually speaking to each other, of course. But then she got fed up with it.

“That’s the fourth time this week, Pietro! Goddammit! Leave me alone!” she shrieked as she hurled silverware at him. He had just unplugged the toaster while she was making herself breakfast.

“It’s not my fault you are so easily offended!” he yelled back as he dodged a fork.

“I never see you pull this shit with any of the others! You’re just singling me out! It’s annoying, and I want. It. To. Stop!” She flung a fork or spoon at him telekinetically each time she gritted out a word.

“Calm down, woman! I am causing no harm here,” Pietro said calmly. He was just trying to get her to stop throwing things.

“Woman!? Don’t call me that!” Quinn yelled. She pushed her curls out of her face; when she got angry they just seemed to fly everywhere.

“Then perhaps you would prefer I call you fetiță?” He couldn’t resist prodding her even though he knew they were in dangerous territory.

“What the hell does that even mean?”

Phew, he dodged a bullet. “In my country, it is a term of endearment.”

“I don’t want you to call me that, either.” Her nostrils flared as she spoke, but she dropped all the silverware. Wanda and Clint wandered in, though.

“What happened in here? A tornado?” Clint eyed the silverware and toast on the floor; the bread was the first thing she had thrown at Pietro, and she had done so with her hands. 

“We heard the yelling from the upper floor,” Wanda said in her thick accent. “You two need to stop bickering all the time.”

“I’ll stop bickering with him when he starts being more mature!”

“Well I will stop bickering with her as soon as she is not so fun to mess with,” Pietro said with a shit-eating grin on his face. Wanda’s face was very serious, however.

“If you two do not stop this, you could jeopardize a mission and put us all into danger.”

“She’s right kids, this has to stop. You’re part of a team, you both are, and you need to act like it,” Clint said, suddenly sounded very fatherly.

“Fine. Pietro, I’m willing to-” Quinn started to say, but as soon as she turned to face him, he was gone. “Do you see now? He’s such a baby!”

“Calm down. You just need to stop giving him such a reaction. Getting a rise out of you is probably the whole reason he’s doing this.” Clint shook his head and sighed.

“Why don’t we just put them in a room, lock the door, and be done with it?” Wanda asked, clearly frustrated with her stubborn brother.

“What, you want us to talk out our problems? That is the whole problem, Wanda. I don’t even know what kind of issue we have with each other. I tried to be nice and civil; he threw it in my face.”

“My brother is… Prideful, Quinn. He is stubborn and does not understand how much is hurting you. You must listen to him, be patient, and then make him truly see what he is doing.”

“Damn him! I don’t want anything to do with him anymore Wanda! Not with his stupid silver hair or his stupid blue eyes or his stupid muscular arms or… I don’t know where I was going exactly, but I don’t want to speak to him! If I have to convince him to tell me what’s wrong, then he’s obviously too immature to hold a conversation with me about it!” Quinn was talking rather loudly and the silverware started floating around her.

“Can you put that all away Quinn? I know it’s just cutlery but it looks a little menacing,” Clint chimed in. She shook her head angrily but the silverware went back into its respective drawers.

“I’m going to work out. I just have to clear my head,” Quinn sighed and rubbed her temples. She slunk out of the room and into the elevator.

“We’re doing this right? They need to work out their issues,” Clint said as soon as he heard the doors close.

“Of course. I am sure they will at least tolerate each other better than this if not become friends after they are forced to share each others’ company.”

Clint and Wanda enlisted Natasha’s aid, and the following day they set up how they were going to get the two in the same room. They didn’t want to be anywhere near each other, so this was going to be difficult. Two hours later, Natasha headed to Quinn’s room while Wanda went to Pietro’s.

“Quinn, I’m working on a project and I need you to grab me some things. If you help me out, I’ll take you to that Italian place you like downtown.” Quinn practically jumped off her bed to fetch the things on the list Natasha had made for her.

“Brother, can you accompany me to the lab? I am curious about our enhancements, and I should think you’d like to come.” Wanda looked pleadingly at her older brother.

“Only because I adore you, sister,” he said as he smiled and ruffled his sibling’s hair.

Quinn was in the lab already, piling strange objects and pieces of equipment into a box. When Pietro walked in, Wanda quickly sealed the door behind him. Quinn looked up and groaned.

“Shit, they’re really doing it.”

“Sister, what is going on? Let me out this instant.” Wanda just shook her head. The door that she was on the other side of was made entirely out of the strongest glass money could buy and was key-card activated. Only someone with clearance could get in or out, and the pair inside didn’t have clearance. Pietro started banging on the glass.

“Is this payback for all of the jokes? I meant no harm, Wanda! They were all in good fun,” he pleaded with the witch behind the glass. She just shook her head again and pointed behind him. He turned around and saw Quinn leaning on the counter. She waved and smiled falsely.

“Ugh! You?” He groaned and turned back around, but Wanda was gone. “Shit.”

“So,” Quinn began, “Let’s talk about our feelings.” The Sokovian noticeably bristled and wouldn’t face her again. She pushed herself away from the counter and slowly made her way over.

“Pietro, whatever I did, I want to apologize for. I’m sincerely sorry for… Whatever it is I’ve done.” She was a foot away when she stopped and waited for him to turn. Instead, she felt a rush of air and when she blinked he wasn’t there any longer. She turned and saw him sitting at one of the lab tables.

“Please Pietro, just talk to me. How can I try to work with you if I don’t even know what I did? Was it the whole thing with Clint? Because I’m not sorry I saved your life and his!” He tensed up at the mention of that. He was far more transparent than his sister, she was way harder to read.

“Talk to me, please.” She made her way over to the table and sat across from him. She would sit for as long as it took to get him to speak to her. As it turned out, that only happened to be fifteen minutes. Then he opened his mouth and finally told her what was wrong.

“The first time I ever see you is on the battlefield. We are on opposing sides, no? You are with the Avengers, who I have despised since the day my parents died. I had every reason to hate you, but you looked so innocent and very small out there. You killed your first man that day, am I right about this?” She nodded, stunned that he was telling her so much.

“I am intrigued. These Avengers, they have new members, and they can do things like my sister. She is close to me, close to my heart. And so I do not stop thinking of you. And then, we meet again on the battlefield, this time on the same team. I see Barton with the child and I do not think. I run as fast as I have ever run in my life, to save this man I barely know. But when the smoke clears, we are all fine. The threat is ended thanks to you. I think to myself ‘I will never be as strong as this girl, this child.’ I do not know why this bothers me so much, but this is the reason I play jokes on you. You are like a threat to me, even though you do not realize this.”

She was stunned at the words coming out of his mouth. To be honest, it seemed like a bit of a silly reason, but she could also see it from his perspective. He had undergone the enhancements specifically to be stronger than the Avengers, and she had gotten her own powers by accident.

“Pietro,” she stretched out a hand to reassure him, “Everyone brings their own strengths to the table. Hell, all I’m really good at is stopping bullets. That’s why they always put me on civilian rescue missions. You’re strong and you’re way faster than anything else alive. You’re an important asset to this team, and we need you here.”

He looked at her outstretched hand but didn’t take it.

“There is one more thing. It is a bit silly and you will most likely laugh.” She noticed he had turned a bit pink.

“Go ahead,” she encouraged him.

He took a deep breath and said, “I have always found you a bit intimidating, to be honest. You are quite beautiful as well as strong. And you have good character and a strong backbone.”

When he was finished, she just stared at him. Her mouth opened as she was about to say something and then quickly closed as she looked around confusedly.

“Am I being Punk’d?”

“I do not know what this means fetiță.”

“I only meant that, uh, I just mean - I don’t understand how you think I’m beautiful. Have you seen Natasha, or looked in a mirror for that matter? I mean, I know I’m not necessarily ugly but…” she trailed off as he watched her babble.

“You are quite adorable. I think I am just unable to control my emotions around pretty girls.” He grinned and winked at her.

“Anyways,” she gulped, “I hope we’re okay now.”

“We will be more than okay, my new friend.” His grin widened as he finally took her hands in his across the table. She felt something like static moving through her veins and her heart raced wildly, but she smiled back at Pietro as normally as she could.

“Now, let us find a way out of here, or else we will miss dinner.” She laughed at that as they stood together.

*fetiță - little girl


End file.
